Lovely Sewing Project And Pure Irony

Sewing - one of the crafts I badly want to learn. When I was a child, my mum let me try out stuff on her sewing machine and I actually made little cushions and bedcovers for my dollhouse. Unfortunately, my skills never went beyond dollhouse cushions. I think, my problem is the fact that I like to do things, but I hate to learn how to do them. I'd love to sew, but I hate to learn it step-by-step. Years after my dollhouse cushions' projects I decided it is time to start a new attempt. Also, I felt sorry for my sewing machine, which was covered in a decent layer of dusk. Yes, I actually own a sewing machine! My grandma gave it to me some years ago. She felt, she doesn't need it anymore and the machine was way too good to be thrown away. So, here I am: aspiring seamstress with no experience, but with a proper "Pfaff" sewing machine. 


For my first "bigger" project I came across a pattern of a reversible bag. The shape of the bag reminded me of one of my favorite handbags, which got pretty worn out during the years. Moreover, the pattern and instruction seemed to be doable by a beginner like me. At times I stayed at my parents' house. Perfect. In contrast to my place, my parents' house has a big kitchen with a really big kitchen table, big sunny windows, proper scissors and my mum keeps vintage fabric. 


I arranged everything I need on our big kitchen table and got busy. While cutting the fabrics, I realized the nice shape of the fabric scraps. They seemed to be perfect for little pockets. Personally, I love pockets in my handbags. I'm a rather messy person and littler pockets help me to stay organized. Also, I did not want the bag to be reversible so I chose a rather unspectacular fabric for the inside. The pockets had to be a bit more spectacular though. I wanted the edge of the pockets to be elastic. So I consulted the manual of the sewing machine and actually found a short instruction how to sew in an elastic band. To my great surprise, it was really simple and worked! I attached two small pockets outside the bag and one pocket inside. To finish the bag, I followed the instruction and it worked out great. My bag actually does look like a bag! Okay, there are some tiny things, which a proper seamstress would detect immediately, but hey, I made a bag!!

Encouraged by this first success, I decided to make another one, but bigger. I enlarged the pattern and altered the length of the straps. Last friday I bought some really nice fabric and snap fasteners. On saturday I eagerly started to cut the fabric and began to prepare the pockets. I didn't come really far. After half of the pockets something happened to my sewing machine and it refused to work. Whatever happened, I couldn't fix it on my own. I send my sewing machine to be repaired by a professional. It shouldn't take too long. On thursday I'll be off to London for a couple of days. I hope, it'll be fixed by the time I'm back. Until then i'll be grieving. It's pure irony that the machine breaks at the time I'm motivated to sew.